


Glass, Content, Pieces

by AshToSilver



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Batman/Joker Week 2014, Brainwashing, Government Conspiracy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 22:52:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshToSilver/pseuds/AshToSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mr. Wayne, it's this government's decision that regardless of the progress, you will become this man's handler. How he gets to the point of accepting that, is up to you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glass, Content, Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Jesus fucking Christ, this took forever and ever but I'm happy with it. I honestly don't know what to mark this as, it _almost_ became a slavery AU, but not entirely. Human possession/pet, perhaps? 
> 
> As a warning, there is one standard scene of attempted non-con and one quick, abbreviated scene later of actual non-con. There may be triggers in terms of brainwashing, but IDK. Universe is kinda Frank Miller style government crapfest.
> 
>  **EDIT Aug/2016:** I have changed my username, I am now going by AshToSilver on AO3 and [my new Tumblr](http://ashtosilver.tumblr.com/)! You can still call me Alex, but I no longer have a day of the week in my name.

They give him a choice. Break the clown, or they will.

It's been two weeks, or there about. Their rooms are almost entirely blank, designed to be harmless in almost every way. There's a bed - big enough for two, but only just. There's a couch, with a low almost-coffee table. A television, behind glass. One separate room with no separating door, a stand-alone shower and the usual bathroom getup.

There's nothing else. There's a tray attached to the door leading out, and all the food cutlery that come in three times a day has to go back on the tray if they want the next meal. Joker, being the ass that he is, figured that one out and it hadn't been until Bruce had started yelling that he'd finally relented.

Bruce regrets the yelling, later.

They have plain white clothes, a fact Joker is never pleased about. The first five days, he makes jokes about the fact that white clothing can practically be considered nudity on him. He makes jokes about Bruce's face, and the padded room and the shows on the television

On day six, Bruce slams the clown's head into a wall, and Joker leaves it at that. There's something different about their fights. They're unmasked, without armour, without even a proper battle. There's no real war between them here.

Days seven through ten, they try to fight and argument. Bruce regrets that later as well.

By day eleven they stop keeping track. They stop fighting too. Joker curls into Bruce that morning, hands grasping for a purchase, burying his nose into the other man's throat. Their legs are entangled, and they've been like this before. On rooftops and in stolen beds and in Arkham's padded cells, but they don't go further today.

"This is going to drive me mad." The clown sighs, so bored already. "Honestly, even I don't keep my victims waiting this long."

Bruce strokes a hand through that head of green hair. It's soft and smells like soap. The cleanest Bruce has ever seen it, without any way of getting truly messed, and it feels like silk against his hand.

That's pretty much the highlight of day eleven. Nothing much happens after that.

Somewhere, between a few days and a week of this, their capturers come into the room. Joker's got his head pillowed on Bruce's shoulders, his eyes half-lidded. He smiles at them, that shit-eating grin never failing, but they merely pass him over.

"Bruce Wayne." They say it so plainly, so unlike the way he's always heard it. "We have use for this man. Make him help us."

The Joker giggles. Is ignored.

"I'm not his keeper." Bruce mutters, moves a hand to Joker's leg and squeezes threateningly.  _  
_

"Of course you are." Drawls the woman standing in front of him. She's got a suit tailored to every curve, her hair done perfectly in a plain bun. She's got a file pinned to a clipboard, and with perfectly manicured fingers, holds up a single sheet of paper with hundreds of dates written on it. "You've been keeping him inline for years."

The Joker laughs this time, shakes in tremors beside Bruce from the fits. "Darling, darling. You're missing the point. That's hardly  _keeping_."

She ignores him. Nobody besides Bruce has even acknowledged that the clown's in the room.

"Mr. Wayne. Can you control this clown?"

"Not in the way you want me to."

"Can you get him to that point?"

"Where he'll listen to me? Not likely. Not here. Not soon anyway."

The woman mulls this over. The two men beside her trade glances.

"Can you break him?"

The Joker purrs, an insult, a challenge, a bad joke already on his lips, but Bruce is quicker.

" _No_."

"Is that a won't or a can't?"

"I can't break him. And even if I could, I wouldn't do that to someone.  _Especially_  not him."

The woman crooks her head. "This man has destroyed more lives in a span of a single night, then you could save in a month. Why would you not?"

"How do you think he got like this?" Bruce hisses, ignores Joker's low  _goodness, gracious, aren't you so kind_. "He's been broken before, I couldn't do that again. Even without a moral standpoint,  _you don't know what will happen_!"

"Mr. Wayne, it's this government's decision that regardless of the progress, you will become this man's handler. How he gets to the point of accepting that, is up to you."

"What are you even asking me to  _choose_?" And Joker's gripping his arm like iron, the nails digging in so hard he can feel the skin break.

"Mr. Wayne." The woman sighs at his ignorance. "Break the clown. Make him listen. Or watch as we do it for you."

"You can't ask me to do that for you." Bruce chokes, and turns to the clown, tries to pry his fingers out of his skin. There's a look in the Joker's eyes he hasn't seen before. Something that could be the second cousin removed to  _desperation_  or perhaps the brother-in-law of  _fear_.

"Mr. Wayne." She tsks. Bruce ignores her, touches a hand lightly to the inside of the clown's elbow, tries to communicate some sort of silent  _it'll be alright_.

There's a click of a gun. The second man has the first held in place. The woman's got a gun pointed at his head.

"Choose, Mr. Wayne."

"What the hell?" Bruce stands up, her finger tightens a fraction. The Joker falls back into a fit of laughter. It's his sort of entertainment.

"Mr. Wayne, your answer."

"Even if I could, it would take months, I'd need things I don't have here, I  _still_  wouldn't be able to predict  _anything_ , I-"

" _Yes or no, Mr. Wayne_."

"Is anyone going to bother asking me which one I want?" Joker's got his fingers in Bruce's arm again.

Bruce turns, sees acid green eyes warring between their eternal state of amusement and the desire to, for once, appear unsure of what's going on.

"If you had to pick." Bruce near whispers, close to the clown's ear. "Which one?"

"Nothing can break me." He sounds so  _sure_. "But if someone wants to have a try, might as well be you, sugar."

The woman shakes her head. "Letting the clown make his own choices? Already you're failing."

"Just give me some damn paper." Bruce growls. "I need some things and he shouldn't know."

There's a nod, then she hands over her clipboard. Bruce flips to a blank page, and begins to write.

The woman leans over, catches a glimpse, and with one smooth motion, rips the paper off, and empties a bullet into the man's head.

The body slumps. The pen in Bruce's hand drops to the floor. The Joker is oddly silent.

"Try again." She grins at him, a cruel grin with teeth not unlike the Joker's. " _Not_  things you can use for escape."

The clown giggles. Bruce weighs his options.

He writes. This time, she accepts it.

\- - - -

"So what are your plans anyway?" It's been a week. Bruce had thrown up in the bathroom directly after the meeting had ended. He'd spent a day or two saying sorry until the clown had gotten tired of it. Then it had been the waiting.

Now Joker was getting curious.

They'd taken Bruce outside the room twice - once to do the first checkover of everything he'd asked for, and again to confirm the changes.  Everything's ready. He just can't bring himself to start.

They'd moved in a chair - bolted it to the floor, in fact. Given him a box - that had everything else.

"I suppose not telling me what you're going to do is part of the plan, right?" The clown sighs at this. "You know, I've spent weeks - hell, months - coming up with plans to break you and they  _never_  work out. You write down a couple of things off the top of your head and you think it's  _going_  to work?"

Joker comes out of the bathroom, shaking his head in mock sadness. "Are you going to say anything, Batsy love? Or is the silent treatment a part of this?"

The box is sitting on Bruce's lap. He hasn't opened it since they gave it to him.

"I didn't pick this off the top of my head." He says, not willing himself to look the clown in the eye. "I came up with this plan years ago."

Joker snorts. "Never used it because you knew it wouldn't work?"  _Or because you knew it would?_  The clown throws himself into the new chair, kicks his heels against the legs and pats the armrests with their straps. "Might as well get going."

The first strap is surprisingly easy. It's all just buckles and leather, easy enough to forget, and the Joker's practically rolling around in anticipation. He giggles as Bruce does the one around his throat.

"We'll start small." He says, as he closes the last one with trembling hands. "Three hours. I'll let you out then."

Joker runs a bright red tongue over his lower lip. "Bring it, darling. You know I  _love_  your bruises."

"This isn't bruises." Bruce says. Pulls the blindfold out of the box, weighs it in his hands for a moment. It's not cloth; it's foam and plastic fitted to the proper shape, rubber around the edges to press right against the skin.

"So we're getting  _kinky_  then." The clown purrs. "Didn't think you had it in you, Brucey."

"Not that either." Bruce whispers, and takes Joker's face in his hands. "Joker, we've been fighting these people for years. There isn't much anyone can do at this point. I want you to know... if we'd never been taken like this, if I had  _any_  other choice, I'd never have done this for you."

The clown smiles, an actual kind smile with not a hint of malice in it. "I know." He leans forward as much as he can, and meets Bruce in a tender kiss.

He's still smiling when Bruce puts on the blindfold. Waits patiently, his body ready for pain, for torment, whatever sick thing he's imagining.

He even grins, when Bruce puts on the headphones, straps them below his chin. "Let me guess, brainwashing on endless repeat. Or is it bad boy band music?" There's a pause, while he waits for a reply, then a tiny twitch somewhere in his face. "Batsy, seriously. Noise cancelling headphones? Are you that desperate to keep me -  _heh_  - in the dark?"

"I'm sorry." Bruce whispers, but the clown can't hear him.

The Joker tenses for a moment, then jerks his whole body to the side, strains at his cuffs. "Come on, Bats, what are you  _playing at_ _?_ "

Bruce takes a step back, sits on the floor and digs his fingers into his knees.

"Brucey, Brucey. You think this'll do anything? I've spent  _weeks_  in solitary confinement. This won't even- even..." 

There's a pause.

"This is it." There's an angry hiss to his voice. "You're going to  _leave_   _me like this!_  Bruce!"

"Three hours." Bruce says.

" _Bruce_."

\- - - -

He knows this won't break the clown. Not at first. But it gets to him all the same. They'd spent the past few weeks in each other's pockets, never a moment alone, only each other for company, and that's what the Joker  _wants_. He wants to have the Bat's full and undivided attention, he wants to sit beside him and curl aside him at night. Wants to share meals and comment on bad television shows and now he's gone full-turkey into darkness.

There are case files in Bruce's head.  _Patient J has been known to become violent if left without stimulation. Patient J has taken to harming himself when locked in solitary_ _confinement for more then a few days. If left without someone to talk to, Patient J will begin to have discussions with himself._

_Patient J thrives on the attention of others, positive or negative._

The first hour is anger.

They had given him a watch, when he first came here. It's useless for anything beside telling time, but now, it's practically a gift from God. He uses it to track the minutes, and document in the journal they'd given him all the changes the Joker goes through.

The first is anger. He talks to Bruce even though he can't hear a response. He yells and screeches, taunts and gets under his skin. It's not  _really_  him, all riled up, launching fake insults, but it  _is_  at the same time.

The Joker does not like to be anything but the centre of attention, and now he's been shuffled to the side and cobbled.

After seventy or eighty minutes of that, it begins to change. His words become spaced, some quiet pause, like he's  _imagining_  a reply. Then, he begins to whisper them, as he turns to some form of boredom.  _Batsy's being mean, leaving us like this. Oh Joker, you know I'd never leave you. But darling, you did!_  

It gets very difficult to listen to.

There is something about the Joker that the rest don't realize, and Bruce can  _see it_. His mind's too big for the rest of him, all memories without anchors and thoughts without reason. It rumbles and tumbles around inside of him, and when he vibrates, when he laughs, when he races about and leaps on the spot - that's him being too small to contain it.

"Bruce." At two hours and a little bit, Joker's head rolls back. He's been having a rather riveting discussion about public transit with himself for the past twenty minutes. "Bruce, I get it now, I didn't lie. I know what you're doing. You're not going to break me; you're making me break myself." The clown laughs, sudden and barking, and stops almost as quickly. "I'd say I'd kill you after I get out of here, but you and I both know that's not going to happen."

He almost takes the restraints off right then and there. But he doesn't. He sucks air in too hard and too fast over the bathroom sink as he splashes handful after handful of ice-cold water onto his face. He counts each second until it turns into a minute and starts over.

This is far more difficult on him then he thought it would be.

A half hour before the time's over, the clown starts to thrash. He pulls at the restraints and whacks his head against the back of the chair. He's speaking almost endlessly, a long stream of nothing and everything. It turns to death threats after a while, no pleads, just endless, endless warnings.

Bruce sits directly beside him, counting down the minutes as Joker squirms and pulls, tries to escape.

The second the numbers click through to three hours, he's reaching for the headphones' strap. Joker groans in something that's halfway thankful and halfway hateful as his fingers press against his skin. He leans into the touch however, follows Bruce's hand as much as he can, his own fingers scratching at the armrests.

His eyes look terrible as Bruce pries off the blindfold. He doesn't say anything, but sucks in a lungful of air like he's just been shoved outside into a particularly brisk winter evening.

"You untie me right now, and I might claw your eyes out." The clown chokes, and Bruce wraps his fingers around Joker's, doesn't protest when they're squeezed so hard he can almost feel the bones grind together.

"I'm sorry." Bruce whispers, and Joker just bares his teeth in something that could be a smile, could be just plain dangerous.

But he doesn't claw Bruce's eyes out when he undoes the straps.

\- - - -

Times two through five in the chair, three hours each, are as equally hard and maddening as the first one. Joker's pride is really the only reason he manages to get the clown to sit back down at all.

He refuses to admit some plastic and leather are scaring him. But Bruce can see it in his eyes.

He's feeling the strain and he wants to escape.

\- - - -

"Please don't." That's the sixth time. "Jesus Christ, Bats. I already went under once today, that was the  _deal_ -"

"We don't  _have_  a deal, Joker." And he has to hold him still, push him towards the chair with his whole body.

The clown thrashes. Gets a bite in when Bruce puts on the headphones. Yells for an hour until he's gasping for water and Bruce doesn't give it to him.

He's got enough order in his brain to realize when three hours come and pass.

When the fourth hour hits, he starts to scream.

\- - - -

"Any chance we can speed this up?"

The woman - whose given her name but Bruce doesn't use - is eyeing the panting clown with something almost like disappointment.

It's been almost two weeks since he's started. He's varying times and hours and as many other variables as he can get, trying to worm deeper and deeper inside that head. A few days before, he'd lengthened the sessions long enough that he'd had to unbuckle the clown and take him to the bathroom.

The Joker's past hating him at this point. He's locked inside his own mind for long enough that the hours between are best spent soaking up all the attention he can get.

"This is a delicate progress." Bruce says. He's sitting on the couch, next to where the chair's nailed down. Their elbows are only a few inches apart and the urge to reach out and  _touch_  is almost overwhelming.

"You're  _breaking_  him, not doing open heart surgery." The woman scowls.

"Have you ever broken a glass?"

"What?"

"Broken a glass." Bruce points to the one sitting in front of him. It's plastic, but the point is clear. "There's a hundred ways to do it. Maybe you've poured cold water into a hot glass and it shatters. Maybe you drop it, smack it, chip it. Maybe it's carefully carved with a tool."

"It's still broken."

"Yes, but there are still factors. What about whatever is  _in_  the glass? It's contents could be fluid, solid, loose or hard - what are you planning to do with them? And that's not even taking into consideration - what about the pieces  _after_  the glass is broken? Are you picking them up by hand, with a dishcloth, sweeping them up or-"

"I  _get it_. Lots of factors."

Bruce rolls a shoulder in something that isn't quite a shrug. "I'm putting the time in now to do this carefully. You asked me to do this, and I'm  _doing it_."

The woman sighs. Joker sobs a strangled plead to someone who isn't there, and asks for the bat. "Are you at least going to gag him anytime soon? My techs are complaining about listening to the security tapes."

Bruce just closes his eyes and shakes his head.

\- - - -

There's a microphone connected to the headset that Bruce has yet to use, but he changes that, four weeks in.

The  _click_  of the power going on makes the Joker go still like a shock's gone through him. The last few times of getting him into the chair have been full-out murderous, full of screaming and shakes and wild, uncoordinated attacks.

"Joker." He speaks quietly, trying not to aggregate the quiet that the clown's ears have been getting. "Can you hear me?"

"Bruce, please tell me that's actually you." Joker's voice has gotten low and rough. "Because that sounds more real then usual."

"It is. I'll prove it - I'm about to touch your leg, alright?"

The Joker sighs when Bruce's hand rests on his thigh. His whole body loosens and relaxes. He's been in there for four hours already, and Bruce has more planned still.

"Joker." The jester shivers at the sound of his name. "I'll offer you a deal, okay? Do you agree?"

"What's the deal?" It's a barely there whisper, his head leaned back against the chair.

"I'm not going to tell you. You're going to have to trust me that it'll be a good deal, and you'll have to fill your part of it. If you don't agree, then I won't talk to you again until I think you're ready. If you do agree, but don't do as I say, then the same happens."

For a moment, there's nothing but barely there mumbles as the Joker discusses the idea among himself. Then he nods. "I agree."

"Very good." Bruce strokes a hand lightly on Joker's cheek. "Here's the deal. If you stay absolutely silent - not a word, not a laugh, not even a sigh - for an hour, I'll give you a surprise. Your time starts now. Make noise, and you fail. Good luck."

The Joker's teeth lightly click as he suddenly holds back words. His throat wobbles as Bruce removes his hand. But he doesn't speak.

Bruce clicks off the microphone, pulls the headset its on down around his neck, and sets the watch. He can see the tremble begin to start as the clown struggles to regain the self-control he'd abandoned for so long now.

It's a painful hour. Bruce has taken to indulging himself in other things, keeping himself occupied to pass the time, but for this round he needs to be vigilant. He watches as the Joker's body begins to fall into full-body shakes, as he chews at the inside of his mouth, and watches tiny streams of blood slip between the paler then usual lips as he tears.

But an hour's over rather sooner then later. The hour passes, the clown remains silent.

He clicks the microphone on again. "Your time is up. I'm going to do something, and then you may speak."

Joker nods, slowly and carefully. There's a line of pinkish blood dripping down his chin, and one of his cheeks looks a bit swollen. But he stays still, as Bruce unbuckles each strap that's pining the clown down.

The clown remains seated once Bruce is done, flopping slowly and still trembling. His head rolls down against his own shoulder, and it suddenly occurs to Bruce how  _exhausted_  he looks. Bruce has been waking him up in the middle of the night, keeping him still for hours on end and forcing him into runs when he's not tied down. The clown's lost weight, the lustre's gone out of him.

Bruce speaks through the line again. "I've untied you. As long as you don't try to remove your headphones or blindfold, you may move around the room and do whatever you wish. You may speak as well, but I will not respond via audio."

"Bruce." It's a gasp, spoken like he's coming up from underwater. He coughs, and blood speckles the hand that he raises to catch it. Then as suddenly as he was still, he falls forward, catching himself hard on the floor, and scrambling to get on his kneels.

Bruce loops an arm around his wrist and pulls him close, feeling the Joker cling to his shirt, nuzzling his nose into Bruce's throat and staining his shirt pink with blood drool. "Bruce, Bruce,  _thank you_."

He buries his face into the clown's hair, regretting everything and mourning the loss of a creature that once was.

\- - - -

Bruce feels like he's disappeared somewhere into an abyss. He knows they're at the darkness point of this, whatever it is. The clown's desperate. He's willing to do anything.

Now Bruce has to make him do it.

He starts with food, combining a mealtime with one session. Puts on the headset and encourages the clown over the line, to hold still and chew when he says.

It mostly works. There's one or two bites, but that's to be expected. Mostly, it's Bruce avoiding thoughts of temptation, because it's been  _months_  since they'd done anything, and the Joker's tongue lapping at the spoon Bruce is holding is an image that looks a lot better then it actually is. He's practically purring, curled in Bruce's lap, head nuzzled beneath Bruce's chin, hands resting lightly on the arm Bruce is using, his back pressed against other arm.

The only thing keeping Bruce from pouncing and taking a good shot at ravishing the clown, is that he looks  _happy_. He can move around, and Bruce is talking to him, even if everything's black and he  _trusts_  that nothing is going to happen to him.

The Joker's never been one for blind faith. It looks strange on him, like someone else has wormed beneath this man's skin, and gotten rid of it's former occupant.

Bruce has single handedly destroyed the Joker, and the jester's  _thanking_ him for it.

\- - - -

Bruce stops taking the gear off a little before they're moved. He knows the clown doesn't like, when one meal leads to another and another and then Bruce is pressing him back against the sheets, whispering  _go to sleep_  over the line.

That's the first time there's a fight in a long time. Bruce has to pin him down, as Joker claws at his clothes, and there's endless streams of  _no no no no take it off Bruce Bats please_.

Bruce shushes him over the line, rubs a hand down the arm grabbing at his shoulder. "It'll be okay, Joker, I promise. Just go to sleep, for me."

For a moment, the clown pants, fear all over the parts of his face that Bruce could see. Then slowly, he leans back, head against the pillows.

"For you." He whispers, and doesn't let go of Bruce for the whole night.

\- - - -

They move them both about three days after that. Bruce has only taken the gear off long enough for the clown to have a shower, one that had been spent with the clown leaning back against his chest, letting Bruce massage shampoo into his scalp, but otherwise, he's been flying completely blind, and doing okay.

"It's been months and you're only  _just_ getting to commands?" The woman sighs. "I'm afraid we can't wait any longer, you're being moved to an alternate facility."

Bruce just wordlessly tightens his arms around the clown, and Joker swings his head back and forth in response, like his sightless eyes can see if he tries hard enough.

"Don't give me that look, of course he's coming with you. Just... we'll grab your clothes, we're leaving now."

Being marched done the halls outside their safe room felt strange. He tucked Joker into his side, leading him with one arm around his middle. The clown twitched, and opened his mouth to speak as they moved in a straight line that was longer then the room, but Bruce pressed fingers against the side of his jaw - a wordless gesture he'd told the clown meant  _silence_  - and mercifully, he listened.

They're taken all the way to a loading bay of some kind. Bruce can see a couple other pairs of people, dressed like they are, waiting for something to happen. They're walked to a long truck, the sort used for shipping, and climb in the back.

There's one narrow row down one side, and the rest of it is taken up by small cells, padded like the ones in Arkham. Their escort marches them down to the far end, depositing them in one of the cells.

The door is locked, no light except for a soft glow coming from one of the ceiling's corners. Bruce sits down, pulls the headset up from his neck and taps the Joker's jaw again, permission to speak.

"What's happening?" The clown sprawls himself between Bruce's legs, spreading himself across as much of the other man as he can get. "Where are we - is this room padded?"

There's a part of Bruce that whispers to tell Joker everything. "We're being moved, trust me, it'll be alright." He rubs a hand through the clown's hair, moves him so his head's resting in the crook of Bruce's arm. "Just sleep."

"Tell me-"

"Do not  _give me orders_.  _Go to sleep_." And he laces it with steel, feels the clown squirm between the old, old need to  _rebel_  and to  _know_  and the newer, still strange need to just  _listen._

He calms, uncomfortable and pressed close because  _Bruce_  knows what's going on, even if he doesn't.

Bruce presses his nose to the top of the jester's head, and hates himself.

\- - - -

Their new home is larger. There's empty bookshelves and plates in kitchen cupboards and if you ignore the fact that there's no windows and only one door leading out, then they're fine. It's a full apartment in lockdown, and it doesn't look half-bad.

It's longterm. He wonders how long he's been there, how long he's going to be there. The government had been rounding up every damn hero and villain they could find when they'd started going after him. He wonders if they're finished.

He wonders why they even housed him with the Joker in the first time. Was this their plan all along? Get him to break the clown, make him listen.  _Train him_.

He undoes the clown's gear unexpectedly. The Joker seems confused at first, blinks at the new surroundings, but doesn't comment. He'd become awfully silent since Bruce had started trading it for things.

Bruce leaves him to wander around and removes himself to the bedroom. Lays down and tries to remember his own training, tries to calm himself, but its not really working.

The Joker follows him a minute or two later. Eyes the bat lying on the bed and then crawls up beside him.

"Think there was another bedroom." Bruce whispers, because it's occurring to him that what he's done to the clown, he might not be able to reverse.

"I saw." Joker says, and curls into his side.

\- - - -

He keeps at it, and starts to call it training, because it is. The stress of the clown's own mind has flung itself all over the place, smashing down the ideas the jester once had, and leaving little more then knowledge randomly scattered about.

So Bruce shapes it, carefully, slowly. His work is supplemented in with new sessions from their mysterious captors, who insist they start training. They get put in obstacle courses and massive rooms full of fake houses. They'll seat Bruce in a observatory with screens and cameras somewhere, and have him give orders over a comm line, teaching the two to work together.

After what feels like a lifetime of fighting and struggle, it's foreign. Joker gives him these looks, like he's  _asking_  if he's allowed to complain, and Bruce just shrugs.

It takes him a long time to realize, they're breaking him too. Bit by bit, chipping away everything he has. His desire to help, to care, to be morally right and to not harm, it's been taken away.

He's destroying the both of them just to save people that may be tortured or hurt or killed if he doesn't do what somebody somewhere says.

It makes him laugh, shakes his whole body with fits of it one evening, when it all  _slides_  into place. Joker grabs his arm as he collapses back against the couch, the television almost entirely drowned out by his torturous mirth.

"Is this what it felt like for you?" He whispers, when it passes, to the clown hovering over him with a nervous look. "Like the world has shattered and your feet are stuck to the ground? No place to go when it tumbles down on you?"

"It's not all that bad." The clown whispers back, strokes a hand into Bruce's hair. He hasn't got any gear on, and Bruce can see all the stress lines, the streaks of grey beginning to pepper the undyed blond hair peeking through at the roots. All the bone-deep wariness. "You'll be okay."

\- - - -

One night, the gear's off and Bruce  _tries_. He presses kisses along the edges of that bright mouth, snakes his hands underneath the nightshirt. Joker pauses for a moment, then responses, kissing back with none of his old passion.

Bruce has memories of tussles that had been more like fights, charged with sexual energy, where it had been a battle to get to the end but  _so worth it_. The man beside him is barely even a shadow of that and it's  _not what he wants_.

He growls, flips the clown onto his back and grinds their hips. Nips along the Joker's throat and presses down, tries to bring back once they  _had_ -

The Joker is still. His expression is unreadable when Bruce pulls back.

"What do you want me to do?" And there's something in his  _voice_ , like he's  _given-up_  and just wants it over with.

"... What do you mean?" Bruce slides back a bit. "I don't want you to do anything."

"I thought you wanted sex." The clown's brow furrows.

"Yeah, but-" It clicks. "Do  _you_ want to have sex?"

The clown's silent for a long moment, then tilts his head a little. "That's your order to give-"

Bruce is off the jester faster then he thought possible, stumbling on the landing off the bed and staggering back against the wall. "Shit, shit,  _shit_ , Joker, that is  _not_ okay." There are images in his head, of the people he's pulled out from between people's legs before as Batman and  _fuck_ , he feels like he's three seconds away from throwing up.

The clown just looks confused. "I thought that was what you wanted."

"I'm not going to  _rape_ you, if you don't want me to do it, just say no."

Joker just looks at him. The confusion's gone. "That wouldn't work."

Bruce is finding it hard to breath. "Of course it would, Joker, I'd never hurt you like that."

"But you'll blind me. Deafen me." The jester's hands tighten on the bed covers. "You never stopped when I asked you then. You're  _still doing it_ , every day." He doesn't look away, he's still looking  _right at Bruce_ , not a tremor in his voice. "What's the difference, between reducing my mind to  _tatters_ because you're scared a couple of people might  _possibly_ die or wringing a few minutes of pleasure I didn't agree to beforehand from my body?" _  
_

Bruce is pretty sure the world's shattering, because now he can't breath  _at all_ and he's pretty sure he wasn't on the floor before. "I'm sorry." He chokes, and now he's almost positive he's crying and he hasn't done that in  _years_. "I'm so sorry."

The Joker sits beside him. Doesn't touch him, but sits all the same.

"I forgive you." He says, and it's the first and last time either of them ever say those words.

\- - - -

He stops deafening the clown. When they're in the apartment, he's never blinded. Bruce doesn't need to anymore. The clown listens. He barely talks. He doesn't laugh above a quiet chuckle. He follows Bruce without comment or command. His only fault - if it could be called that - was that every time Bruce stood still, sat or lay down, in public or in private, the clown was  _there_ , right in his space, right on his lap or curled around his side. Bruce was never not touching the jester.

People commented on it, but Joker never seemed to hear them. He might have had his hearing back, but he never heard a word anyone else said.

For months, they work on their government training. Bruce gets an order, gives it to Joker, imaginary task completed.

One day the woman - the same woman who said  _break him or we will_ \- leans over and says, simply, "make him kill the target."

Bruce gives the order. Before he can stop himself. The clown twitches for a moment on the screen, and shoves the pipe he'd been using to ward off pretend attackers right through the throat of the man in front of him.

Bruce barely feels a thing. But Joker touches his cheek in a silent sorry anyway.

\- - - - 

There's a mission. Their first. Bruce can't remember much. The truck they used to get to the new facility is the same one they use to go to and from their destination. Joker runs a hand over the padded floor as they rumble down the road.

"Reminds me of Gotham." He says, and Bruce just closes his eyes.

\- - - -

There are endless spans of time in which Bruce thinks he can't feel worse, and discovers he can.

The Joker at least has the decency to pretend he can remember what feeling good was like.

\- - - -

They are trained. They are used. This was the plan, of course. Harness the hundreds of heroes and villains with ready-made skill sets. The world's governments are driving themselves into the ground, tearing up the world around them.

Technically, that's not true.

They're making all those ex-capes and ex-baddies do it for them.

\- - - -

In the end, Bruce kills a lot of people.

He gives the order and the clown  _does_.

"How many lives would you have saved, if you'd let someone else give breaking me a shot?" The Joker says, after the second or the hundredth mission. It might have been a few days or a few years.

"Two." Bruce says, as he cards a hand through green hair. They'd redyed the hair, remarked the skin, for the  _fear factor_. "Mine and yours." He groans as he ruts against the clown. Joker stiffens, drags his lower lip between his teeth in something that could have lust or just plain old pain.

He trembles into Bruce's chest as the bat takes them both apart, for a few minutes of pleasure.

\- - - -

Joker takes to lying on the floor. It starts in their little padded transport room, giving his bones a rest, but it  _spreads_. If Bruce is sitting somewhere, getting briefed or what have you and where clowns on laps are a  _no_ , then Joker will start out kneeling beside him, change to sitting, and soon after, just sprawl around the legs of Bruce's chair, a hand or a chin on his foot to say  _I'm still_ _here._

It's one such day, when Bruce is sitting outside a meeting room, the Joker making those wheezing noises he makes when he sleeps, and he hears  _"Bruce_ _?_ "

There's a man standing there, with a woman in a wheelchair. They look old, worn, but younger then him and it really makes him wonder how bad he looks.

He doesn't regonize them.

"God, Bruce, we thought you were  _dead_ \- is that the  _Joker_?" The man gasps and then clicks his mouth shut suddenly, putting the pieces together. The woman in the chair gives him a sad look.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I can't remember who you are."

"We're sorry to have bothered you then." The woman in the chair says, and grabs the man's arm, drags him away and shushes him when he tries to speak.

They're left alone. And it hurts more then it did a moment before.

\- - - -

"We're going to need your skills on this, Bruce." He hasn't done anything more strenuous then a work-out routine in years, but he nods all the same.

There's prep and training and when he piles into that padded transport room, he's as armed as the Joker. This is a hundred time's more dangerous then usual.

They sit side by side in the dark, blindfold off, equals once again for a single moment.

"Why do I have a bad feeling we won't be coming back?" Joker whispers and says nothing more at all. Bruce squeezes his leg, but the man doesn't respond.

\- - - -

There is a war. They fight. Joker kills with such slick ease, it's almost beauty.

Bruce shoves a knife into a sixteen-year-old's heart, and nothing happens to him at all.

A lot of people die.

They are not among the body count.

\- - - -

There is a padded room in a truck. He knows this room as his. There is a the set of rooms in a building that are his as well. There is a name (Bruce) he calls his own. There's a man with white skin and green hair and green eyes who sits at his feet and curls on his lap and kisses him at night. This man has not made a sound above a sneeze in the broken thing he calls his memory. This man is completely and utterly his in every way.

There is nothing else beside that.


End file.
